Is CCTV a better solution than Neighbourhood Watch?

There is little doubt that in recent weeks crime has escalated throughout St Francis. Concerned residents have started a Whatsapp group that went viral in the first day it was launched and talk seems now to centre on crime rather than the weather. It would seem in spite of their very best efforts SAPS are doing their very best but we must that they are understaffed and have too few vehicles to patrol the huge area under their jurisdiction. Our security companies Calibre and SMHart are working tirelessly in responding to crime activity but it must be accepted that their task is really to service their clients, not the community. That they do help the community at large must not go unnoticed they should be thanked for their efforts in supplementing the police efforts which truly is beyond their call of duty considering they are at times, risking their lives for going that extra mile.

There has been some talk of forming Neighbourhood Watch groups to combat this increased crime in the greater St Francis. The roots of neighbourhood crime prevention, including Neighbourhood Watch, can be traced back to a Chicago School and its focus on the relationship between the social environment of neighbourhood and crime in the late 1960s.

The concept ticks all the right boxes and there are many very effective watch groups operating in South Africa. But there are many failed initiatives for unless the community is fully behind the concept they are sadly doomed to failure. Having been a member of a group in the eighties was initially great fun and being teamed up with the then mayor of the town gave us certain privileges including a ‘blue light’. Unfortunately as the weeks of getting up at midnight, or staying up to “patrol the empty streets” (some oldies will recall that line from the days before television in the popular radio series ‘Squad Cars’) soon took toll on many of the members. Work, travel and family commitments saw the group dwindle until there was only a handful left to do patrols. Inevitably through lack of personnel, interest, support and motivation the group disbanded.

But personnel and motivation aside! Consider the cost of those patrolling not only their valuable time and time away from their family but also the cost of petrol and vehicle costs incurred whilst they drive the area night after night. And being working people normally, there are no patrols during the day when crime does occur.

Some months ago John Hammond set up a meeting at St Francis Links for a demonstration of CCTV equipment. No doubt some left the meeting muttering over the cost but in reality it is probably the least expensive way of securing an area, particularly high risk areas that are regularly targeted by criminals.

Another meeting is being arranged at St Francis Links on the 30th August at 17:00 (5:00pm) where a group called Elf will be presenting a possible solution to the costs.

Below is a press release from John about what the meeting.

Greetings,

As part of the investigation into a St Francis CCTV solution we have, with the assistance of Wayne Furphy, chairman St Francis Property Owners, made contact with a company called Elf Rentals based in Port Elizabeth. This group are major systems integrator to the security industry, in short they design, supply and maintain any technology required for the management of security around any form of estate, village or town.

Elf are not in competition with any local armed response service providers and in most cases local service providers such as Smhart & Calibre will welcome the community injection of technology to enable them to perform their duties better.

The majority of Elf’s work is on a rental basis where they fund the capital off their own balance sheet, install the hardware and insure and maintain it, where the community enter into a rental agreement with the HOA/entity to recoup the capital and fund the servicing costs.

This model works really well with estates or towns on a fixed levy structure where raising capital via a special levy is a challenge. The client has a fixed monthly expense and a guarantee that the equipment works.

Elf currently looks after 60 odd estates in the Fourways, Lone Hill & Midrand areas as well as several golfing Estates, most of the high end estates in PE which is HQ of the group.

We have invited Elf to present an overview of their offer to the community as another step in the gathering of information on a St Francis CCTV solution.

We invite members of the community / representative of groups/ estates or communities to attend.

Please feel free to give your local Community Police Sectors a call to discuss any element of how we can make St Francis a safer and better place to live.

Food Stamps instead of cash?

Following yesterday’ post on car guards and casual labour, a couple of interesting comments. Peet Kemp, chairman of St Francis Tourism suggested a very possible solution that could be used, not only for car guards, but as a general method of giving ‘money’ as a gratuity to those deserving of such or to the needy, if you ever feel so inclined. By giving cash it is certain that many of those asking for handouts will spend the money on alcohol and or drugs so Peet’s suggestion could be a worth pursuing further.

The suggestion is that coupons be printed and sold at Spar, and other outlets for that matter. These coupons in denominations f say R2 & R5 that can be given instead of money and would be redeemable for food only. Let’s call ‘food stamps’ for lack of a better description.

Obviously there are costs involved in printing the coupons so to be sure that nobody loses money on supplying them, they could sell the food stamps in booklet form for say R45 for a book of 20 x R2 coupons and R110 for a book of 20 x R5 coupons. Spar could sell the booklets and so would receive money upfront for future sales and with a bar-code printed on the ‘food stamp’ tracking sales on the till transaction should not present a problem for most retailers are equipped for processing coupons on specials.

By offering ‘food stamps’ it could greatly reduce the incidences of beggars hanging around when they realise they aren’t going to get money for booze. On the downside some would no doubt sell coupons at reduced rates but Peet’s suggestion certainly has value so maybe others can expand on the concept and maybe even run with it.

A bit of lateral thinking and there is also an opportunity for a little advertising to cover the cost.